Skivington expects a war of attrition when London Irish face Saracens

'You won’t get many surprises with Sarries. They are a tough team with tough guys and are fit'

George Skivington expects a game of attrition when London Irish take on Saracens at Twickenham

George Skivington is hoping London Irish’s extensive planning will give them the edge against Saracens tomorrow in the first game of the London Double Header.

Exiles were one of the first Premiership clubs to return to training this summer and their new first-team captain insists the squad are fully prepared for when their season gets underway at Twickenham.

Irish and Sarries begin proceedings, before Wasps take on Harlequins in the second game of the day.

Ireland International Tomás O’Leary will take the captain's armband for the crunch fixture.

Matt Parr, David Paice and Halani Aulika make up the front row. Nic Rouse will partner New Zealand International, Bryn Evans in the second row and Jon Fisher, Kieran Low and Ofisa Treviranus will play together in the back row.

Ian Humphreys will partner O’Leary in the halves with Eamonn Sheridan and Guy Armitage forming the centre combination. England International, Marland Yarde will join Sailosi Tagicakibau and Topsy Ojo in the back three.”

Director of rugby Brian Smith said: “Our players have been back in training since June 3 and have been looking forward to September 7 for some time. It is always a privilege to play in front of a big crowd at Twickenham and the squad are ready to go.”

Skivington suffered a head injury in last Friday’s 27-13 defeat at Munster which will prevent him from playing but he is determined there will be no repeat of the 40-3 thrashing Irish suffered at the hands of Saracens on the opening day of last season.

He said: “We have worked really hard these last three months and we have put everything into it.

“We are a lot more organised than we were a year ago.

“That was carnage. We had new players and new coaches and we went into that game relatively confident. But we had a lot of flaws exposed and our defence was particularly poor that day.

“It was a tough pill to swallow and we realised we had a lot of work to do.”

Skivington, though, is adamant Irish are in better shape now.

He declared: “There is not really much more that we can do behind the scenes to get it right and change the ethos. Everything has been spot on as far as I’m concerned. Now it is just about turning up on the day and doing everything that we practised. All the training and pre-season games is for tomorrow’s game and onwards.”

Skivington continued: “Sarries are very organised. They know what they want to do, they are structured and complete their phases.

“It is probably going to be a game of attrition. You won’t get many surprises with Sarries. They are a tough team with tough guys and are fit.

“I want to see us be more consistent as there were some games last season we just handed over in the last few minutes. If we iron out those sort of things we could have a good year.”

Portuguese representative side Lusitanos are to compete in London Irish’s Amlin Cup group. They have taken over the fixtures of Spanish team Olympus, who withdrew from the competition due to financial concerns. Lusitanos will play Exiles in Lisbon on October 19 and at Madejski Stadium in January (date tbc).